Halo: The Pascoe Wars Part 1 Close Encounter
by Screamin' Lord Byron
Summary: 2559. Installation 02 has been discovered, and Admiral Marilyn takes his fleet to supervise the study and decommissioning of the oceanic ring. Amongst his fleet is newly re-fitted and updated UNSC frigate 'Deathrod', under the sturdy command for 8 years of Samuel T Pascoe and 2 year old sympathetic AI Louise. Spin-off of Halo: Shooting Stars, written by myself and GrimlyFiendish.


"Commander?!... Commander?!... COMMANDER PASCOE, can you hear me?!" Cried Louise from beside him. "They're all gone! SAM, you listen good and hard to my voice. They're coming. GET UP!"

Dust was still settling as his eyelids slid open and the blurry vision wore off, Commander Samuel Pascoe slowly reached up for the arm of his chair, and picked himself up off of the hard cold surface that was the metal floor of the bridge of the UNSC Deathrod. Once he'd checked all five of his senses were working properly, he quickly regained the ability to comprehend that Louise was truly terrified. She was lighting up in every colour other than the deep orange she should be.

"Louise, damage assessment? Ship and crew." Pascoe hastily asked. He could feel that at least the bridge heating system was online.  
"Lower and Upper deck Life-Support systems are gradually declining, Weapons systems are offline, Hull Integrity compromised to 47 per cent, Ship Propulsion online and Slipspace drive active and able, Casualty reports major and minor injuries on all decks, 52 fatalities," Louise paused for a moment to honour them, "Please Commander you need to leave, they're pushing their way up to the bridge."  
"What about the rest of the bridge crew?" Protested Pascoe.  
She hesitated before speaking, "They're already gone sir, come on, let's go." Answered Louise.

Samuel got up and turned the pedestal beside him and removed Louise's data chip from the slot that it was perched, and traded it into his pocket for an earpiece and wedged it into his right ear, and wearily ran towards the bulkhead door out of the bridge. "Louise, can you hear me?" Asked Pascoe.  
"Yes, I can hear you Commander." She responded.  
As he steadily slowed to a long stride, fast paced walk, he asked the all-important question, "So why would everyone on the bridge leave without me, or you for that matter?"  
"Let's just focus on getting outta' here first. Please." Louise emphasised. "Almost all routes to the armoury have been overrun and automated sentry weapons have been taken and positioned in key locations, except for the mess hall. However, that is also where they've captured and taken most of the crew as prisoners."  
"Wait, they took sentry guns out, and placed them strategically?" Pascoe questioned  
"Hmm, Louise, do you still have access to the ship's environmental controls and life support systems?" Pascoe considered.  
"Partially, not to the entire ship… Why?" Louise replied.  
"Well is it a ship wide infestation?" Pascoe scornfully responded.  
"No. Actually, they all seem to be converging onto the mess hall."  
"Why would they… Oh no. We've got to get to the armoury now!" Pascoe started to run as fast as he could.  
Pascoe was sprinting through empty rooms, adjusting to each tone of black as it got darker and darker the further into the ship he went, until he made it to a long corridor. The whole passage was practically pitch black without power to the lights. "Louise, I can't navigate my way through this one, too dark." Pascoe argued.  
"The ship is still switching over to emergency power for lighting. But it shouldn't take this long."  
"You'd think that the lighting would be the first thing for the emergency power to restore." Pascoe indicated. And as soon as he had said it, the hallway lit up a dark red.  
"Commander, wait. I'm picking up an anomaly in the environmental sensory data down the hallway." Louise solicited.  
But Pascoe didn't need sensory data to tell him that. He could smell it, that same foul odour of a thousand rotting corpses.

Just slightly, in the dark red light, Pascoe insisted he could see a silhouette of a man. A crew member even, slumply walking towards him. He could have sworn that that man had mumbled something and choked, but he couldn't understand it, however, as he started moving slowly to the figure and it steadily got closer to him, Pascoe could see the extent of this man's injuries. He had blood oozing from his back over his shoulders and onto his torn uniform at the front and down the sides, he'd sustained many head gashes that all described the same, but now he understood.  
But with all the pustules this man was growing from nowhere and his body slowly turning to rot, he was hardly a man anymore, and Pascoe realized it now. The man was choking on his own blood trying to keep the only piece of his humanity he had left, just by yelling one, gargled word. "RUUUUUN!"  
And run he did, and as much as he wanted to help the man, he knew that it took a true fighter to withstand the flood parasite for as long as he did, so he'd honour the dying man's request and run.  
When Pascoe got to what felt like a safe distance to watch what was happening, he could only describe it as horrible, and he finally got to a point where he couldn't bare to watch anymore of what he could still hear, of screams, of pain, of suffering. But when the metal halls ceased transmitting the echoes of cries of a helpless man, and went silent, that's when Pascoe knew it was time to run faster. He found one of the ships many maintenance access ways, pulled at the manual release, and slid the hatch open and closed it behind him. Surprisingly, Pascoe noticed that somehow, the access ways were lit up brighter than anywhere else, making it much easier to navigate the narrow hallways.

Samuel leant and dropped down the side of the wall about 50 meters in, trying his hardest to keep his emotions as prisoners locked behind bars that were his eyes. All that was going through his mind were the remnants of the images of what he had seen, and heard. Already he was repressing them, along with the rest of the worst of his life.  
"Why? You never answered me. Why did the bridge crew leave without you or me?" Pascoe finally brought up.  
"Commander," Louise hesitated, "It's not as simple to explain as, '_they just left you and me behind'_ as it seems." Louise replied.  
Pascoe's mentality had had enough, his emotions were breaking out. "Ok, fine, explain it in whatever words you see fit. Why. Did. They. Leave US?!" He sobbed.  
Louise was silent for a full minute before she finally said anything "I didn't… they…" She paused to gather herself, "Sir.., I never said that they had already '_left'_. I said that they were already _gone_."  
From that point, it was silent as the grave. Neither said anything, Louise out of sympathy, and Samuel out of frustration and grief.  
The only sound made was the sweeping up the wall from Pascoe's shirt uniform as he got up, "We've got to keep moving."

After about a half hour of weaving through the access ways, Louise had managed to lead Pascoe out past the mess hall and down a floor from the armoury safely and without any sighting of the parasite.  
"One would think that they'd given up." Pascoe remarked as he was making his way to the stairwell. He'd made it up one flight of stairs to reach the armoury floor, when he heard the most familiar repetitive firing of the infamous 8 gauge Shotguns, belonging to who, Pascoe didn't know, but he knew one thing, people were holding up at or trying to take the armoury. So Pascoe drew out his M6 Magnum and released the safety.

In part, it was Pascoe's rather proud ego that was to blame for his going against the Flood with a pistol, but nevertheless, he and six other marines had made it through the encounter.  
"Commander Pascoe, so good to see you alive sir. I'm Private Walter Gibbs, we've been holding up here for a while now, hoping that more would come, but as you can see… we're a bit down on numbers. No one but you and someone else, uh… I think he said his name was Sebastian, but he was killed in the second wave, poor kid. You turned up in the middle of the fifth. We only hope that that was the last."  
"Well, that's all we can do for the moment." Pascoe assured. "How well stocked are we here?"  
"We got everything here sir." Gibbs glorified. "Shotguns, Rifles. Even Rocket launchers, but we were hesitant to use those. You know, in case the noise attracted too much attention."  
"Well thought of, and well done holding the armoury private." Pascoe complimented. "Alright marines, listen up." Pascoe now had his game face on and motivational speech in check. "I want as many of these shotguns as possible loaded, and rifles and magazines filled, and stuffed into these three duffle bags. You, you, and you." He pointed at three marines. "You three will take these bags and stick to the rear of us, and whoever we find on the way, you will give them access to the bags for arms and munitions. We are heading to the mess hall. We will get there, and most likely engage in a firefight. Louise has informed me that the Flood have taken they're prisoners there, and I dread what they plan for them, so watch your firing. There are strategically emplaced sentry guns set up on our route to the mess hall. Do we have anyone here good with tactical maintenance?"  
"I guess I'm not terrible at it. I took the courses but I was never classed as a technician." Spoke up one of the chosen duffle bag marines.  
"And what do I call you?" Asked Pascoe.  
"Corporal Simon Garrison." Answered the soldier at attention.  
"Well, you've just graduated to one." Pascoe commended. "This goes for all of us, we fight as a team, and we will get through this."  
"With all due respect, sir. Why not simply blow up the gun emplacements? Why send a technician to disable them?" Gibbs asked.  
Pascoe hated explaining his actions if no one else saw his point of view, but he didn't have to. Garrison muttered aloud, "Because we need them to set up our own defence once we get past them, and to trade targets from human to Flood."  
Pascoe was somewhat surprised that the marine knew his role even before it being assigned to him.  
"Fair enough." The marine accepted.

The three bags got filled up into sections of four by threes. Four shotguns, four assault rifles, and four battle rifles, all paired with packs of their respective ammo on top, and a disputed forth bag filled with two Rocket launchers and a seemingly endless supply of rockets. Everyone then synced their helmets and earpieces to Louise, and they filed out of the armoury all with a shotgun each. Gibbs took point with one duffle-marine behind, two more marines behind them, Murphy and Fillips, then Pascoe and Garrison, and demolitions expert Ronald Darling, carrying the rocket-duffle.  
"Louise, can you direct us to the nearest sentry gun?" Asked Pascoe.  
"Certainly sir. Private Gibbs, take the next right into the sleeping quarters, and head up to the next level."  
"Sure thing Louise," Acknowledged Gibbs, "and once we're up there?"  
"The first gun will be ten meters down the corridor to the left, which afterwards is the first entrance to the mess hall. There are two maintenance access ways that Corporal Garrison may take to get behind the gun, I will blow a water pipe valve in a further corridor to drive away the flood at the gun, and the rest of you offer covering fire for the corporal against whatever flood remain."  
"Sounds like a good plan Louise." Pascoe thanked, "Alright marines, let's do it."  
Once they were up the stairs, everyone became ever so quiet. No one could hear a single sound from one another, but they could make out the grumbling of the parasite ten meters down the hall to their left.  
"Murphy, back up Garrison up there." And the two got into position at the door of an access way. "On your go Louise." And there was suddenly a distant clanging of metal on metal sound, followed by a spraying of water, and the entire Flood position was left vacant as the parasite went off to investigate. "Go, go, go." Pascoe ordered, and Murphy led Garrison down the small passageway. _Why would they leave the position completely abandoned?_ Pascoe wondered. _They were acting smart enough to place automated defences around a single stronghold but then just leave them when they heard a noise._ _Something was off.  
_Murphy and Garrison made it to the gun and Garrison began reprogramming it to attack the Flood.  
"This should only take about two minutes." Commented Garrison.  
"ONLY TWO! A lot can happen in only two minutes" Murphy whispered back  
"Well I need to remove all this muck from the touch pad so that I can access the friend or foe settings." Garrison explained.  
"These things work on simple settings?!"

"All clear to come on through." Garrison announced down the hallway. And one by one the rest of the group filed around the corner. The guns were slacked down a bit, now that the current trouble was averted.  
"What's wrong with them? Leaving their gun undefended. Anyone could steal it. Hell, we did." Gibbs asked.  
"How the hell are any of us expected to answer that?" Answered Fillips.  
"It was just a question."  
"Quiet, both of you. I hear them again. Where are they Louise?" Pascoe exclaimed.  
"There is nothing on the motion sensors Commander. Nor are they registering as environmental anomalies."  
"Okay. If there were ever a time for one to freak out, this is definitely that time." Stated Murphy.  
"Shut up Murphy. Only ahead of us?" Asked Pascoe.  
"On the ship." Louise finished.  
"So… they've just abandoned ship. That's good, I guess."  
"Murphy. Shut up! What about the crew in the mess hall? How are they?"  
"They're all alive, numbers haven't diminished, and in fact they've grown. Well, since the last time I checked."  
"The ship, how is she?"  
"Lower and Upper deck Life-Support systems are still degrading, Weapons systems are still offline, Hull Integrity at 59 per cent, Ship Propulsion online and Slipspace drive active and able, Casualty reports major and minor injuries on all decks, 56 fatalities, that I can make out."  
"Whoa, hold on… 59 per cent? It was 47 when last I asked you. That can't be right. How did we gain integrity?" Pascoe managed to ask. "Well, can she take off how she is?" Pascoe asked with both enthusiasm, and dread.  
"The Deathrod will be able to take off and fly again if the hull magically makes it to 70 percent. But if not, we're not going anywhere."  
"One more thing Louise… can you check for any irregular human sounds or noises, other than ship systems?" Pascoe queried.  
"It's a long shot sir, but I can try. It may take some time to listen and categorise, but if anything should come up..."

"Gibbs, we might as well help those in the mess hall. Lead away."


End file.
